October 26, 2008
Sneak Peeks
My short story “On a Picnic” will be appearing in The New Quarterly 108, which should be in stores in a week or two. In the meantime, check out the sneak peeks, featuring my story, as well as pieces by Cathy Stonehouse and Russell Smith.
October 26, 2008
Recommended
At the Descant blog, I’ve written about the perilous nature of book recommendations.
October 24, 2008
Killing the Keyboard
“Had the instant message come first, and the telephone conversation second, what a triumphant technological breakthrough the phone call would now seem! How proudly the papers would unveil it, how breathlessly the business pages and Wired magazine would celebrate the innovation. Real-time conversation! Actual voices! Effortless dial-up-and-speak communication! No need to wear your fingers out just to say hello, how are you! At least, the realm of the real voice; hear your sweetheart’s breathing! Listen to your best friend’s cough. Enjoy! You are there, really there, at last. Steve Jobs would hold a press conference, holding the phone up high, with amazement. And the next day the back page of the business pages would have one of those defiant, declarative full-page ads: “Real speech! Real Time! The Real You.” It would be on the cover of all the newsmagazines the following week. (And there would be contrarian op-ed pieces in the Times:”Why I Will Never Make a ‘Phone’ Call”; “The ‘Phone Call’– Is It Killing the Keyboard?”)” — Adam Gopnik, “Last Thanksgiving: Immensities” from Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York
October 23, 2008
Linky Places
The best thing lately is FontPark, in which you can create pictures out of kanji. With sound effects! So fun. And then Rebecca Rosenblum reading Weetzie Bat to the world. Sarah Liss on Sarah McLachlan, and how she got her heart broke. (People who read this article also read “Man accidentally shoots himself in head with crossbow”, incidentally.) Ivor Tossell’s bits on the internet that just won’t die. Ringing so true: “An Invective against birthday dinners”. Pickle Me This faves Atmospheric Disturbances, Skim and Nikolski are up for Governor General’s Literary Awards (for fiction, children’s literature, and translation, respectively). And finally, I am about a begin reading a paranormal suspense novel. So stayed tuned for details of that…
October 21, 2008
Slacks for Ella Funt
I am very excited, as this weekend I get to discover if my new sewing machine works. I picked it up at a yard sale about a month ago for $10, but have no clue how to use it, so am not sure if I wasted my money or not (credit crunch). However, a sewing savvy friend is going to give me lessons Saturday, and then after we’re going out to our local Hungarian to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution. An exciting Saturday is destined then, though I am still not sure what kind of useless cloth item it is I am going to (dare I dream?) create.
What I really want to do make is slacks for Ella Funt:
Ramona tugged and tugged at Ella Funt’s slacks, but no matter how hard she tugged she could not make them come up to the elephant’s waist, or to what she guessed was the elephant’s waist. Ella Funt’s bottom was too big, or the slacks were too small. At the same time, the front of the slacks seemed way too big. They bunched under Ella Funt’s paunch. Ramona scowled.
Mrs. Quimby considered Ella Funt and her slacks. “Well,” she said after a moment. Slacks for an elephant are very hard to make. I’m sure I couldn’t do it.”
Ramona could not scowl any harder. “I like to do hard things.”
October 21, 2008
Dad-Lit, it seems
This weekend I read The Child in Time by Ian McEwan, which I was surprised to see acknowledged itself as indebted to Christina Hardyment’s Dream Babies. I’ve not read my copy of Dream Babies yet, but will do soon due to the rave reviews I’ve seen by others. Anyway, the McEwan book was really wonderful, and perhaps my favourite of his since I read Saturday. (I really didn’t like Atonement that much; is there a terrible place where they put away people like me?). I don’t know that I’ve read such a thoughtful book by a man about parenting and childhood. And then without even thinking, I picked Adam Gopnik’s Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York to read next. It seems I’m really on a Dad-lit kick, but I am loving the perspective. “Whatever the origins– and I leave it to some meatier-minded cultural historian to trace them all– what child rearing is, when you live it, is a joy. It should be seen as we really do feel it– less as a responsibility imposed than as a great gift delivered up to us… [Children] compel us to see the world as an unusual place again. Sharing a life with them is sharing a life with lovers, explorers, scientists, pirates, poets. It makes for interesting mornings.”
October 17, 2008
Entitlement by Jonathan Bennett
I’ve been trying to think of a more suitable avenue into Jonathan Bennett’s novel Entitlement than the fact while I’ve been sick in bed these last two days, it’s been my dearest companion. But you see, as I’ve been sick in bed for two days, my capacity for thinkage is stunted. Which is unfortunate because as much as “the book’s got plot” (a quote from Bennett, interviewed at Bookninja), Entitlement offers much more to remark on.
Interestingly, however, that the book would be so plot-driven was not so obvious until about two thirds of the way through. What hooked me from the very start was premise– an outsider’s perspective onto absolute wealth and affluence. “The rich are different from you and me.” Which was, of course, a bit Fitzgerald, but also reminded me of one of my favourite paperback guilty pleasures which is A Season in Purgatory by Dominick Dunne. Except, set in Canada– what a twist indeed for Canadian Literature. Do we even have rich people in Canada anyway?
The “outsider” is Andy Kronk, who enters private school through a chance hockey scholarship, and becomes swept up in the drama of the Aspinall family. An awkward triangle forming between Andy with the Aspinall children, Colin and Fiona. When his father dies, Andy becomes a surrogate brother, privy to the intimacies of the Apsinall world. Discovering the heightened power of the wealthy in Canada– a country determinedly blind to class distinctions. This blindness allowing the rich to have control unchecked, without notice or acknowledgment of the extent of their reach.
This reach has been apparent to those who’ve tried to touch the Aspinall’s before. Biographer Trudy Clarke is having trouble getting interviews for the book she is planning, and she is warned to abandon the subject altogether– of the father, Stuart Aspinall, she is told, “He ruins people he doesn’t like.” However, Trudy will not be deterred. When she is granted a connection to Andy Kronk, she sees it as a prime opportunity, leaving her daughter and all other responsibilities behind to travel north to Kronk’s isolated cottage. Andy proving particularly candid, for his own reasons. Bennett’s multiple points of view showing both characters believing themselves fully in control, but we soon discover that neither is at all.
It is from this point on that plot takes hold, complete with twists, audible gasps (mine) and crooked cops. Clues from the beginning I hadn’t even picked up on becoming significant, and this book of so many points of views taking on a cohesive shape. A race to the end, for sure, but then this is a plot-driven book written by a poet, so this isn’t a guilty-pleasure either. The very best of all number of worlds and influences, and so thoroughly enjoyable. Fiction to get lost in, and once you’ve found your way out, there’s much to reflect on about where you’ve been.
October 16, 2008
Oh, but do forgive?
Oh, but do forgive my slow progress in coming back to life. I spent a good week in a magical land, and since returning home I’ve been everywhere and nowhere, and often not where I am supposed to be. Getting over a cold, very tired, excuses, etc. blah blah, previous Liberal government– you know how it is. More interestingly, check out a special IFOA Readers Reading at Seen Reading this week. And I aim to be more interesting soon.
October 14, 2008
Attending
Tomorrow night I’ll be attending the Toronto launch of What It Feels Like for a Girl by Jennica Harper. Will be way more interesting than election returns. From 8-11 at Clinton’s (693 Bloor Street W.). See you there?
